This pass on the barges allowed the art team to fulfill a long-standing request from the game design team. Way back in 2012 when CCP Tallest implemented the big tiericide of mining barges the three branches of barges were changed to have similar mining yields and specific specializations (defenses, storage capacity and range/yield). At that time Tallest added role bonuses to the Procurer, Skiff, Retriever, and Mackinaw to bring their effective strip miner count into the same general range. He also asked the art team to make a note that next time the Barges and Exhumers were up for a regularly scheduled visual refresh they should be unified at the same number of strip miner hardpoints. That day has now come!

To compliment the art rework we are completing a light pass on the stats and bonuses of these ships and of the strip miner modules themselves. The balance between the mining ships is in a fairly healthy state right now so we're not making any drastic changes to the relative strengths of the different barges and exhumers.

For a bit of insight into the current usage of the top 7 mining ships, here's the breakdown of mining yield by volume (last 90 days including ore, ice, and gas):

Retriever: 23%

Mackinaw: 22%

Hulk: 21%

Skiff: 14%

Procurer: 8%

Covetor: 7%

Venture: 4%

Other: 1%

Unsurprisingly the Retriever and Mackinaw are still on top (unchanged from the last time we presented these stats) due to the very high value placed on ore bay capacity among a solid chunk of miners. However we don't feel any need to reduce the power of Retrievers and Mackinaws, as their popularity isn't out of control and other alternatives have their own well-balanced strengths.

The overall mining yields of the Procurer, Skiff, Retriever, and Mackinaw remain unchanged after this pass. The Covetor and Hulk will gain a lowslot which allows some new options and the potential of greater yield (although fittings will be appropriately tight when using three MLUs).

As part of this change we are increasing the yield of all barge-sized strip miners and ice harvesters, which cancels out the changes to hardpoints and bonuses on the Barges and Exhumers. We are also providing a moderate buff to the ORE Strip Miners and ORE Ice Harvesters.

Center for Advanced Studies

Gallente Federation

It looks like you're taking away one of the Mining lasers with the Hulk (so more active switching by a miner to go do what is already an extremely tedious activity in Eve and reducing mining yield by a 1/3rd) - while boosting it by 25% (1/4) in other areas with perhaps more boosting in the low slots? Which comes out to about even except again - anyone mining with a Hulk has to be switching Asteroids more often??

How is this not just make mining even more a boring less lucrative activity (especially with the planned mineral price nerf changes)?

I mean come on ...First you have Citadels that are absolutely useless to defend unless you happen to have a fleet on your beck and call (so much for POS equivalency, especially for wormhole manufacturing), now you screw over mining with more ludicrous hand waving - and silly do nothing upgrades ...

No wonder Eve subscriptions are dropping - and people are jumping ship for more entertaining games like Star Citizen, No Man's Sky, Elite Dangerous etc.

Deadspace Knights

Looks like a pretty neutral change... while giving an increase to active mining. *shrugs* Looks good.

Are you teeing this up to see if it changes mining ship usage in the future, and if not coming back to look at the other ships? If updating art helps make these changes come about; anything on assault frigates?

V.I.C.E.

I have to second the extra cap for the Skiff. My fit is just barely cap stable now. Add another strip and it will fail.

Morn: If you are using a Skiff, the extra strip means less switching, so for some of us, its a good change. Averaged across all the miners, it balances out. Also, the Hulk yield is not changing: It gets a 25% boost, and the strips get a 25% boost, together that cancels out the loss of a strip.

some random local shitlords

Skiff has same yield as a Mackinaw, same lowslots, +1 midslot, +50m³ dronebay, +50% drone damage, and three times? Four times? the EHP of a Mackinaw.

In return, the Mackinaw has that super cool orebay, which is really important, sooo important! (It is, but only if you multibox so many Mackinaws that you can't empty the orebays of your Skiffs or Hulks as fast as they fill up.)

There is no way I could come up with a mechanical implementation of having 2 stripminers on every barge or exhumer that could be *less* exciting than this. For a few days, something vaguely interesting was visible on Singularity: a 25% role bonus to yield for the Retriever and the Mackinaw. Now, those vessels have NO role bonus. None. Feel free to read that as "this ship has no role".

Stralisemiai wrote:

Can we have a different skins too.. Quafe ones would be nice.

Morphite Shine (red and bluish brown)

Digmaster Blazon (yelloworange and bluegreen brown)

Paydirt Prospector (blue and brassy brown)

ORE Developer (already exists now, but redone as white and black)

CCP Fozzie wrote:

ORE Strip Miner: +30% volume mined per cycle, -10 CPU

The ORE Ice Harvester has a cycle time identical to the T2 Ice Harvester; A T2 Strip Miner with T2 crystals has a yield of 16.667% that of a T1 Stripminer. This new Ore Strip Miner, at 4% better than a T1 Strip Miner, will be going as unused as the old one. Not that any semi-intelligent human being would ever fit any on the death traps that is any non-Skiff/Procurer miner, of course, nor would they turn the latter two into gank magnets by fitting them on those...

The artwork is pretty decent, but these changes... thouroughly disappointing. Go read the ideas of Baltec1 in this thread. I don't agree with all of them, but at least there was the possibility of some excitement.

Serene Vendetta

No wonder Eve subscriptions are dropping - and people are jumping ship for more entertaining games like Star Citizen, No Man's Sky, Elite Dangerous etc.

I wouldn't put Star Citizen in the same league as EVE. Also, NMS is 'a tad less' than what the developers promised. And when I say 'a tad less' I mean: it sucks balls. Big ones.

However, I do understand and agree with your concern and these changes are rather baffling.

Any change should reflect a necessary change for the improvement of the dynamic in the system and I don't see how removing one mining pylon on a Hulk is going to make it a better activity.

The last pass was uncomfortable at first but then I saw the sense behind it and those changes were actually quite good. It made the barges something you wanted to have instead of having ship like the Procurer that was essentially worthless.

Now we get a different set of changes, the use of which does not make a lot of sense to me.

CCP Fozzie, friend, why is this happening?

Why did you not do something that would propagate throughout the New Eden demesne in the way minerals were added to the ship-building experience as described, by myself, here: Ore acle